Silence
by TheConspiracyTheory
Summary: AU Recently transferred Auror Harry Potter is now working under the paranoid Mad-Eye Moody, who sends him to a dark place where convicted felon Voldemort resides. A Harry Potter take on Thomas Harris' Silence of the Lambs, which may just diverge from the original plot.
1. Chapter 1

Chapter One

Behavioural analysis, the Auror division that dealt with the most heinous crimes known to the Wizarding world was tucked away on the bottom most floor, well below the court rooms in the Ministry of Magic. Harry Potter, slightly windswept from the hasty travel from his home in Cornwall and the startling rush of ministry elevators, finally reached it. In vain effort to flatten his perpetually messy hair, he adjusted his glasses before meandering his way through the desks and desks of open case files.  
>He found Section Chief Alastor Moody alone at the back hunched over a stack of paper. Before he did reach him however Moody instantly snapped the folder he was pouring over closed and turned around, his magical blue eye swivelling in its socket. What Harry saw greatly then greatly disturbed him.<br>It was not the mangled scars nor the wooden leg that he had comfortably associated with the man but it was a general weariness in his posture, his dragon hide coat that once fit like armour now seemed to hang limply on his frame. His single human eye while still held its sharp glint was more sunken in, tired.  
>"Ah, Potter its nice of you to finally to make it," growled Moody.<br>"Sir."  
>"Now you're probably wondering why I called you here, correct Mister Potter."<br>"Yes sir, I was unaware that I had any outstanding cases or any new ones that had been assigned -"  
>"CONSTANT VIGILANCE!" Shouted Moody, "You never know when something might happen, stay sharp Potter."<br>"Yes sir, always," said Harry taking a step back.  
>"When was it you transferred down here?"<br>"March of last year."  
>"From Magical Forensics was it? A background in spellwork."<br>"Yes sir," answered Harry tenuously.  
>"I was talking to Rufus Scrimgeour the other day and he mentioned you outstanding work on the Yaxley case. I have a new task for you."<br>He shuffled through some files before pulling one out and handing it to Harry.  
>"Details are in the file, it's the weekend, get some rest, be well prepared I expect you to be down in Azkaban on Monday."<br>"Azkaban sir?"  
>"All in the file," replied Moody turning away from Harry returning to the numerous papers on the desk he was occupying.<br>Taking it as a signal to leave Harry stowed the file in his jacket. While normally he would have shrunk it, case files generally had anti-theft spells which included the inability to shrink them. Heading for the exit, his hand reached for the door handle just as he first heard rather than saw the red stunner approach him. Ducking it shattered the glass pane in the door instead.  
>"Constant vigilance Potter, constant vigilance," growled Moody from across the room, his back turned away.<br>Smiling to himself, and enunciating a quick reparo, Harry stepped out of the room, closing the door softly behind him.


	2. Chapter 2

Sturgis Podmore, forty-seven, overseer of Wizarding prison Azkaban stood behind his wide wooden desk. Upon it sat two sneakoscopes and a large piece of foe-glass. Some Aurors called the desk the 'moat'. Other Aurors had no idea what the 'moat' was. As Harry Potter approached the, Podmore remained seated.

"We've had many Aurors come through the last week, but I don't think I've seen you," remarked Podmore, still seated.

"Well..." tapered of Harry, taking a hold of the offered hand.

"No matter, Harry was it? Behavioural analysis, eh? Looks like the Auror department is recruiting teenagers."

"I am well beyond my teen years Mr Podmore," replied Harry.

"Sturgis, please. Now lets get down to it, will you be around for the next few days? I'm afraid there's a rough storm coming in, the ferry ride will be chopping at best."

Anti-apparition wards around Azkaban expanded far enough that the only way onto the island was from a ferry that ran from Edinburgh twice a day once in the morning and once in the afternoon which aligned with the guard shifts. Dementors while were still used as a precaution, were less trusted by the Ministry these days, especially since the desertion at Nurmengard during Dark Lord Grindelwald's terror.

"My orders were to see the prisoner and leave this afternoon."

"Ah, then there is no problem, Identification please."

Tapping his wand sharply at the Auror ID card Harry procured and scrutinising it for several seconds, Podmore finally handed it back before asking for his wand. He handed over his holly, phoenix feather wand to Podmore, which was stowed away on a cabinet for such purposes.

"I'm afraid as a visitor, Auror or not, protocol states you must leave your wand behind. This way now."

Harry followed Podmore from the entrance hall down to a set of barred walls.

"Don't fall behind now," he said lightly as Harry flinched at the sharp creak of the metal closing behind him.

After his talk with Moody, Harry had returned home and over a chilled goblet of pumpkin juice, he poured over the case file. It was nothing more than a profile, a profile of one of the most prolific prisoners that resided in Azkaban.

He-who-must-not-be-named. You-know-who. The Dark Lord.

These were the names that the Wizarding world had familiarised with this man. Harry had heard the stories from Aurors older than himself and the brief snippets in the papers during his time in Hogwarts. The case wasn't widely publicised, but no one could forget the mangled bodies of several muggles at the Quidditch World Cup finals held in Britain, nor the brutal death of Cedric Diggory, son of Amos Diggory from the Department of Regulation and Control for Magical Creatures. How many deaths that went unsolved or unlinked to the few ones known by the media was well beyond imaginable. He, the Dark Lord had been a leader of a cult following of psychopathic murders, all those caught behind Azkaban bars, but others had escaped the system claiming the use of the Imperious curse and still more were never caught.

Behavioural analysis and countless psychiatrists had studied this man, but came away with nothing. Many said he was worse, far worser than Grindelwald, yet unlike his followers he was not a psychopath and perhaps that was what stopped even the most powerful of Legimens to pick apart his mind. No, he was not a psychopath at all.

He was rather, the epitome of a sociopath.

To say that Harry was not scared of this man would be to say he was a fool, but the Gryffindor inside him was curious at best. While the Wizarding world had created frightful monikers for this man, the case file revealed one thing. While the man's true name was Voldemort, his real name was Tom Marvolo Riddle and Harry had no qualms in using either. After all fear in the name instills a greater fear in the thing itself.

Flicking through the file, his weekend was spent on reading through it. The amount of known murders committed by Voldemort and his follows, Death Eaters they were called, was atrociously high, perhaps record breaking. Reaching the end of the file, stuck to the back of the folder was a small scrap of parchment, with Moody's undeniable scrawl over it with two worlds.

Werewolf Killer.

The Daily Prophet had dubbed a series of three murders, wizards that had been killed and dumped into rivers Werewolf Killer for the bites that had showed up all over the bodies. The first two were both in the Trent River, leading to Aurors assuming the murder was from Wales, but when the third body turned up in Exe River, it threw everyone off. While usually it would have been dismissed as a copy cat, there was an undeniable connection that was not released to the media and it was the fact that each body had been skinned with surgical precision.

Harry had read about the case and talked about it briefly with Dean Thomas who was working the case. The two of them had been in the same year at Hogwarts and Dean was currently dating Harry's ex, Ginny Weasley, not that Harry cared too much, of course.

Finally after some pondering, he had to assume that the scrap of parchment was left there by mistake, so he returned to the rest of the papers. If Moody wanted him to talk to Voldemort then that was what Harry would do.

"We hold him in maximum security, behind bars all the time," said Podmore idly as the walked through the cold stone corridors of Azkaban. "We tried to study him, you do know that? He's a master of mind magics. We never got him to talk, not even under Veritasium, he twisted our questions."

"Well here we are," said Podmore, nodding at the two Aurors who stood guard, "Well Mister Potter, this is where I leave you, surely you know the rules, do not put your hands through the bar, if you need to give him something, it's through the food carrier tray. No hard materials and a standard quill is available. Do not accept anything from him directly, everything is to go through the tray. Am I clear?"

"Yes, of course," said Harry.

"Good luck. Oh and Dawlish will take you through," finished Podmore, gesturing at one of the guards before leaving.

Nodding, Dawlish moved towards Harry as his partner muttered complex incantations at the steel door.

"This way, Mr Potter was it?" said Dawlish, "This is the only way in or out, and you must be accompanied by an Azkaban guard at all times." He lead Harry through the door only to be greeted by another one. As the one behind them slammed shut, Dawlish spoke again, "Its a double locking mechanism, it requires two people to go through and one outside to lock the first door before the second can be opened. Its a standard in most maximum security facilities."

Waving his wand in the same manner as the Auror outside the second door creaked open. Harry was greeted with the sight of a long corridor stretching for quite some distance.

"I'll accompany you down a bit, his cell is the last one. We don't let him out anymore, not after what he did to Emmeline Vance," continued Dawlish, pausing to pull out a photo of a brutally disfigured beyond recognising face. "Some rookie gave him a metal nibbed quill, the next time we took him out for a check up, he did this to her. The best Healers at St Mungos could only save her right eye. Well I suppose you can walk the rest of the way."

Dawlish stopped and passed him a fold-up chair.

"Last cell, stay away from the bars, I'll be waiting here. Oh and take him this," said Dawlish, slightly on edge, as he handed him the Daily Prophet, "He likes the crossword."

Shoving the paper into his bag Harry lifted the chair with one arm and walked his way down. Almost at the end he heard a wild cackle, "I can smell your filth, HALFBLOOD!"

There was a echo and sounds of jeering, but Harry continued as if he heard nothing. Close now he could see the faint glow of a Lumos Permna in the last cell. Steeling himself he settled the chair down, the metal a loud clang against the stone floor and if that did not announce his presence to the occupant in the last cell, then the jeering behind him surely did.


End file.
